The Ex Libris and ProQuest global Technical Product Support organizations are very pleased to announce some improvements to customer support.

Because so many customers use both Ex Libris products and ProQuest content platforms, we began a project earlier this year to align how the two support organizations work together. As a result of this effort, we will be rolling out some changes to improve efficiency, collaboration, and communication. Some changes will be specific to internal staff and processes, and others will be very noticeable to customers, but all the changes are focused on our goal to improve and harmonize the experience of Ex Libris and ProQuest customers.

We invite you to join a live webinar to be held in major regions globally where we will demonstrate the important upcoming changes live and discuss the value we expect to come from these efforts.

You can see and use the changes below most efficiently when logged in to the ProQuest Support Center. We take issues from customers via live phone and Chat, email, and through our open webform. But customers who register and login to Support Center get the broadest array of information and features. Among other things, logged in customers can create, update, and monitor support cases; see and export a history of support cases; or see all support cases linked to your institution. Get more information about what’s available through the ProQuest Support Center here or just register for access here.

Here is an overview of some changes implemented in ProQuest Support Center October 21, 2018:

Simplified Customer Satisfaction Surveys for ProQuest Support Cases:

We have improved our survey format so customers can provide their feedback quickly through a simple, one-click response. Surveys are sent to the customer contact who reported the case when the Support Analyst Resolves the case. We also welcome written comments in a free text field of the survey response. All surveys reviewed for performance recognition as well as opportunities for improvement. Surveys scored with “Very Dissatisfied” will have a follow up from management team with the customer.

Changes to the handling and processing of New Titles request, Metadata changes, & Replacement of corrupted titles:

Customers requesting new additions to the title offerings or reporting usability issues with online titles will be able to report issues and engage directly with the Content and Editorial support teams handling such issues.

24x7 instant access to reported cases and statuses, including knowledge articles through the Support Portal

ProQuest Support Center Knowledge Articles searchable via Google

Customers will benefit from advanced support article searching in the Support Knowledge Portal, through the Google index. Support articles help you find answers to issues such as Access problems, Usage and Billing questions and a lot more.

Use the following syntax to search the Support Center Knowledge base through the Google index:

Additional functionality for Library staff members:

Library staff members who login to the to submit cases, will be able to see the following additional changes:

Set Case Priority:

The table below describes all available priorities and when they should be used, in addition to providing examples for each priority level. Internally, a scoring system is utilized to provide a visual aid to quickly determine the urgency of an inquiry (case). When a priority of “High” or “System Down” is assigned to the inquiry, the case will receive a boost in score for priority handling.

Priority

Description

Response Time Target

System Down

Platform unavailable

Target initial response within 1 Hour. Verify and report outage or provide latest update to customer on known problem.

High

Problems with authentication or major functions of the platform are no longer working properly

Target initial response within 1 Business Day. Scoring system is used to boost urgency level for cases with High priority.

Medium

Non-performance related requests for assistance. (This is the default priority)

Target initial response within 1 Business Day. Scoring system is also used to boost priority for handling.

Low

General questions that not necessarily require a timely response

Target initial response within 1 Business Day

Cases submitted through the webform (Support Center “Submit a case” page) and emails will get Normal priority by default.

Examples of appropriate priority usage:

Priority

Examples

System Down

• A production server has failed (production down) • Multiple users cannot access the production servers • Performance of the servers has degraded to an unusable level • Data is unrecoverable, corrupt, or lost

High

• Critical component returning error or not responding • Degraded application performance is having a serious negative impact on business • A database or application error has occurred which severely impacts business operations

• General question such as “how–to” • Issue with little or no impact • Documentation issues • Issue is essentially resolved but remains open for customer confirmation. Intermittent wait status with little or no customer interaction required

Case Escalation:

If a case is not progressing to the customer’s satisfaction for any reason, customers can escalate a case with a new functionality available when customers view their cases logged into the Support Center. This will escalate the case to the Support Team Manager’s attention.

A button labeled “Escalate This Case” will now be available, to logged in users, above the "Case Details" section.

What happens to escalated cases?If you escalate a support case via the ProQuest Support Center, the Support Team Leader and Manager are notified automatically. You will receive confirmation that your escalation request was received, and we will review the case to identify next steps and update you daily.

Case Status Changes:

We have aligned many Support Case Statuses & Fields for a more consistent experience whether you have an Ex Libris or ProQuest product support issue. The following changes will go into production on our ProQuest Support Cases on October 21, 2018:

Status Name

New Status? (Y/N)

Previous Status Name

What does it mean?

NEW

Yes

Open

A New Support Case

In Progress

No

Case is now under Support Analyst review and communication with customer has been initiated.

Pending - Release

Yes

No previous name, this is a new Status

Used to notify the Support Analyst that a development fix has been created and when it will be released.

Pending - Customer Testing

Yes

No previous name, this is a new Status

Customers can choose this Status for cases in their Support Center account to indicate they are testing a recently released fix for the issue.

Pending - Work Plan

Yes

No previous name, this is a new Status

Technical Support Analyst has presented a defect to Development for evaluation, and Development has determined that the issue is still under consideration to be included in a future work plan for the relevant product but there is no planned date for release.

Cases in Pending Work Plan status will be reassessed by Support and Development periodically.

Pending - Content

No

Case is now under review with Content Team for resolution.

Pending - Development

No

A ticket has been opened with Development team for review.

Update Received

Yes

No previous name, this is a new Status

When customers respond to a request for additional information, this Status notifies Support that you have provided an update to the Case, and the Support Analyst should review the new information and continue their investigation.

Reopened

No

Reopened

Revised Status

When a customer adds a comment to a Case in Resolved status it will be updated to “Reopened” to signal Support to look at the case again.

Resolved

No

Customer confirms that no additional work needs to be done to fix the issue noted in the case.

Find associated changes to Ex Libris Support Portal described here.Find the Webinar overview of these changes here.